Found
by MyMadness
Summary: Morse had worked with Siobhan Maitland just briefly. But he remembered her. "Is there someone special waiting at home?" "I think so," she had told him. So, why had she written asking if he would be in London? Ch 8: Home. COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: Found/Founding/Founded. I've become a real odd sort and started having fun by naming my fics alphabetically. I wrote this and THEN had to think of something that started with F. I like Found for the different meanings. Found, as in the past tense of find. Or that thing you come across unexpectedly or after searching. And Found as in setting up, laying the ground work, establishing or launching some enterprise. _**

**_ In Driven to Distraction, Sgt. Siobhan Maitland, an expert in crimes against women, works with Morse and Lewis to solve the murders at hand. Siobhan and Morse get on well, but the relationship is professional. There was that parting scene. They wished each other well. She acts concerned for him and had seemed to want to stay in touch. The night they had spent working together, they had seemed to size up what each had in the way of a significant other, as if there was some interest there. The question asked was something along the lines of, "Is there... someone special waiting at home then?" He had said for him there wasn't. She had replied a bit mysteriously, as if she was not quite sure - that she thought for her there was someone waiting at home. _**

**_In my mind, she returns home to find she is wrong. That the only one she is thinking of suddenly is the enigmatic Chief Inspector._**

**_Updated A/N: This was originally a one-shot, but I am currently working on lots more chapters...  
_**

/ / / / / /

Chief Inspector Morse stopped scanning the room; he'd found her. Siobhan nodded to him, but resisted the urge to wave like a school girl. From her side of the hotel's foyer, she watched for signs her acquaintance was as nervous as she was as he crossed to join her.

There was the awkward moment of _not_ shaking hands... of _not_ treating each other like two police professionals reunited. But that left them with little greeting at all.

"You're here," she said.

"I'd written that I would be." There was no cutting reproof for her nonsensical opening line. Instead his quiet tone seemed to show he appreciated the unease behind it.

They ended up at a table on the hotel's terrace. Morse's glass of white wine in deference to hers. Hers being something quick to move the situation beyond its tense, inauspicious beginnings.

"Was it a good seminar?" he tried gamely. Work was what they had in common. It made no sense to not talk about it in general terms at least, they both sensed.

"I suppose," she told him. "You learn a bit. You get a break from the paperwork..." She saw her segue then. "It gave me the excuse to write you to see if you would be coming."

He nodded, understanding. He had welcomed hearing from her. But because they had worked together, because there had been the difference in their rank, with him senior, Morse would not have felt comfortable writing to her first. If he had contacted her and it had been viewed as an unwelcome advance by a senior officer, God knows, that would have been embarrassing at best. Possibly disastrous.

But they had sorted it with an economy of letters. She had written to ask if he would be at the London seminar on Police Reporting Procedures and to let him know that she would be... and that she would welcome seeing him. That she would enjoy speaking again on nearly any topic... not ones confined to a car repair shop near Oxford from 4 months previous.

He had labored over the reply. Did she know that? He wondered as he watched her over his glass. Alas, he was not scheduled to attend the weekend seminar. But he wrote to tell her that he frequently did visit London and was not averse to scheduling a trip in to coincide with the end of her course.

If the Detective Sergeant knew him at all. Knew his manners and his temperament, she would know that 'frequent' did not describe his willing visits to London in any sense. He left his home territory in his off hours only under high inducement.

"You had said you thought there was someone... waiting for you," he began. There was a motion with his head. "Back home, last we spoke."

_God, he was wary,_ she thought. _Merely honest? Unwilling to proceed without knowing the score._

She smiled uneasily. "I was a bit wrong on that. There was someone waiting. I found it wasn't who I thought it was."

"You'll have to explain that one, I'm afraid."

"Do people ever turn out to be someone you didn't think they were?"

He raised his eyebrows at her to shame her. Their shared occupation alone would have answered that question, and certainly the case they had worked on together - and promised not to discuss - had been full of people not being who they appeared.

"Yes, well..." she continued sheepishly. "He was not what I wanted waiting for me."

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "I've recovered obviously. I... well... you know..."

Morse smiled. _She is nervous, thank God. That helps somehow_. "You wrote me... told me you would be here..."

"Exactly." She blew out a breath. "Forgive me. This is fairly nerve wracking for me. I wrote you the letter asking if you would be here for the seminar. Sort of, well, fishing. I didn't want it to come across that way though. So, since I was so horribly vague in the letter, I've been left wondering if, when you saw me, you would know..."

"Know?"

She laughed at that. His detective's annoying habit of simply repeating the last thing said so as to prompt a witness to say more.

"If you would know that I was interested in you," she supplied with more confidence. "Which you do at this point with all the idiot rambling and stumbling about. Which only leaves the second thing I was worried about."

"Which was?" he said with a teasing look he could not hide behind his steepled fingers. It was obvious the second thing would be whether or not he was interested.

"I was wondering how your car fared," she pretended to lie with a laugh.

"I would not have come for any other detective sergeant," he said meaningfully, answering her unspoken concern. "Although it does pain me that you would have to BE a detective sergeant." There was a tight little smile then.

"Yes, a bit of a complication," she admitted.

They had both gone to pains to avoid running into anyone from their stations. Siobhan had moved her things to this new hotel and met the Inspector here. He had dodged the few questions he had gotten about his weekend plans and left his distinctive Jag at home.

He was smiling now, he knew. And he felt a strange contentment settle on him as she returned his happy expression. As he had gotten ready for this trip, a part of him had complained that this weekend was foolish. That his efforts were wasted. That doubting side to him was silent now as she tugged her chair a little closer... as the story she was beginning took on an entertaining, conspiratorial tone that drew him in.

They spent hours out on the town after drinks at the hotel. They took in a museum and a meal. She enjoyed the smile that he wore so easily in this situation.

Morse, for his part, was completely taken in by how enjoyable and relaxed her off duty personality was. The rhythm to her speech, even her walk, had a happy ease to it.

All too soon, it had grown late.

Siobhan stopped on the sidewalk and gestured off down the block. "We're near enough the station here," she told him with obvious reluctance. "You could catch the train back... might be the last one soon," she confirmed looking at her watch.

"No, I'll get you back safely to your room."

"And miss your train?"

"I'll be all right," he said a bit gruffly.

"Sorry. It's all a little ... awkward."

They walked on then a dozen more steps. And she pulled at his arm gently until he stopped to look at her. "Do you want to share my room? Go back tomorrow?"

She hadn't said, "spend the night," he noted. As confused as conversations like this left him (on the rare occasion he had them) this one seem even more distinctly unclear than normal.

"I don't even know what I want to have happen," she continued. "Although I know I'm glad you aren't in a rush to catch that train." Her hand moved up then to touch his cheek and his expression softened. His hands stayed in his pockets even as she moved closer, as if he didn't trust those hands to do things quite correctly or as if he was conceding this moment to her. But he leaned forward. Felt his weight move to his toes, as he mirrored the small movements she was making toward him.

They had held hands at times over the day. She had shown a fondness for taking his elbow. For touching him when they talked. He had known, had let himself believe, that there would be this kiss at some point. But as she kissed him, one hand to his cheek and the other on his lapel, he forgot about expectations. Suppositions. Probability.

It was a bit of a question, that first kiss. One for both of them to answer. As it ended, they didn't pull back. Rather, they lingered there an inch apart. There was a sigh. Another breath and he kissed her back. His hands came from his pockets then as part of his answer, and his fingers took a safe but possessive place on her waist. And with her hands and lips, she replied in kind.

She looked pleased with herself as she eased away from him finally. Or perhaps, he allowed, she was actually pleased with him. With the situation. With the kisses.

"I could get a separate room," he offered.

"If you want..." They started walking then, and she waited. Weighing her words before she said them. "We've managed a night together before in the same room," she said. She was breaking her rule... mentioning the case and the hours they had spent pouring over old car records till dawn. Good hours, despite the work. "Are you against a night of reasonably chaste behavior in a shared bed." She laughed then and put a hand to her forehead. "Is that just a ridiculous thing to propose? I'm sorry, I don't even know. It's likely there is a book I missed on expected behavior in these situations."

"A dozen books, most likely. But don't feel badly, I missed them, too."

She answered him with a little laugh, and by leaning up against him as they walked.

"Is it a suitably large bed?" he joked then, hoping to save the conversation.

"Oh, yes!"

"Two pillows?"

"Four, I believe. Although they are of middling thickness."

"Ah, must be a tourist hotel," he pretended to complain.

They were stopped now, waiting for the light. She looked up at him. Dissatisfied with merely remembering their kiss, she rose on her toes and gently pulled him to her. Now it was not the searching, languid kiss of before. Just something quick to feed the desire his banter and the warm tones of his voice created in her.

Was it the kiss or the smile that followed that left him standing there stock still while traffic waited? He didn't know. But she seemed chuffed that it gave her the opportunity to take him by the hand and lead him off the curb.

He was recovered then. Still, Morse felt it was someone else, some other man, who leaned in and whispered to her, "Will there be a bundling board in this room of yours?"

"What?" she replied with a mixture of shock and amusement. She knew it was foolish to be surprised that he would mention something so arcane, but she couldn't help it. "One of those boards down the middle of the bed? That was a Scots invention, I am sure. Not an Irish one." She squeezed his hand. "I'm going to want to have my arm around you while you sleep," she told him plainly and honestly. It seemed almost a warning as to her depth of feeling.

She was already picturing it, he believed as he stopped on the far corner to look into her eyes. She reached up to disturb the hair at his temple then. Mussed it with a single finger as if creating her scene. What he found in her face was intoxicating. Genuine. And it made him want the privacy of that room now.

"Come on," he encouraged her as he pulled her in to walk beside him.

They were silent for the rest of their walk back. Their pace a bit more lively than leisurely.

He faded behind her as she unlocked the room door. He watched and waited for the clues. Siobhan lit only the small light at the desk in the corner... She pulled her pajamas from her suitcase.

/ / / / / / / / /

He held the covers open. She seemed to be eying him suspiciously, but she complied and slid into the bed on her side.

He covered her up and walked to his side of the bed. He lay down then - on top of the covers.

Morse kissed her. Worked his arm under her head. He put his other hand out and traced her hip bone through the layers of blankets.

"You think me silly for what I said earlier?" she demanded. "That we could share this room and not..."

"No. I think this is a good idea. I don't want to rush this."

"And these blankets you've got me wrapped in?"

"A bit of insurance," he told her quietly. "So I don't forget myself."

"Oh, God," she said in a strained voice.

"What?"

"That notion is **incredibly** sexy," she told him. And she tugged at his shirt to pull him closer.

/ / / /


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Ruined for life. That's what I am. I once read a very well received fic where the sex scene started because of the drop of a hair clip. Honest to God, a hair clip. Ping. It hit the floor, and an insane, indiscrete, work-place liaison (that resulted in an inordinate amount of property damage) then resulted. I have rebelled against that sort of brisk, fanciful portrayal ever since. _

_Thank you for all the kind help, Sel._

_Thank you for reading this. I know this has nowhere near the audience of the Harry Potter and Who stuff I write, but I love Morse dearly. And I wanted to see him 'sorted' so to say. If someone else who loves Morse reads this, and likes it, then, well, it just makes my day._

/ / / / / / / / /

In that strange bed with Siobhan, Morse's concessions to comfort and need were few. His belt and shoes he had left on the floor. His shirt was pulled open. And his trousers were still on, just unhooked at the top.

She kissed him. But she seemed so mindful of not leading him on. One of those proper girls told that there was nothing worse, he supposed.

There had come an unguarded moment when his fingers had grazed her stomach beneath her top. She had gasped. She'd gripped his shirt fiercely then, as if her hands would rather be somewhere else. And she had actually pulled her hips further away from his through some obvious effort.

"Stop," she said. He heard the question in it as much as the request.

"Sorry," he answered softly.

She was afraid he had misunderstood. "It wasn't that I don't want you to..."

"Hmmmm?" he soothed.

"I want you to, too much."

"And that's not what we're on about tonight."

"Mmm," she rallied, now that she had her breath back. "I hadn't **thought** we were." She had smiled then, as if amused by their joint ability for torture.

His mind soon lit on a hundred topics, like the improbability of being there with her. "Why did you want to see me?" he whispered.

"Because all my fantasies started running along these lines."

His look was incredulous.

"Us. Like this," she confirmed.

"I couldn't write to you first. You know that." It was a seeming non sequitor, but it was really a return statement on the shared, early affection.

"There was something about you after we worked through the night together," she told him.

"It started then," he answered. "Something in the way we got along that night. The way you started to tease me. Like we were old friends. You would lean close when you talked. Smile." He shook his head as if to clear it. "You said, 'Spending a night with a man can be very revealing.' And it sounded so... Lovely."

"It was a foolish thing. I don't know why I thought I could say something like that."

"Maybe because it was 2 am," he said with a whispered smile.

"I told myself I could flirt a bit and you wouldn't notice."

"I didn't **believe** it, is the problem. I'm fairly blind sometimes. Though I got a little less blind that night. I realized you had freckles on your nose. Three weeks on that case and I never noticed. What else was I missing, I wondered. It got steadily clearer then," he kidded. "Because there you were stretching, sitting at my feet on the floor... like a nymph. Innocent. And so alive. Oblivious to how attractive you were being."

The corners of her mouth turned up at the compliment.

"For me," she said with a touch to his throat, "It was your shirt pulled open just there. It was those quiet admissions ... things you said about doubt and wants. It may have been the bit of beard in the morning that made it all feel so comfortable and intimate. That was how I saw you after that in my head. You... in the morning. That sort of stolen picture of you."

"Everyone thinks me so unbearable." He winced hearing his own words. Did some part of him constantly find it necessary to engage in self-sabotage, he wondered?

But she only laughed.

"It's true," he told her. "I am difficult. Impossible at understanding people. Overbearing... And I was all of that on that case, and you would just roll your eyes at me. I saw it," he accused with a touch of a laugh.

"I have four brothers," she informed him.

"Oh, no wonder I've never had much luck with women. What were the chances of me finding a women with four brothers?"

"In my neighborhood. Fairly good," she joked.

"I liked that you didn't cringe when I came into the room."

"The way the others did?"

He narrowed his eyes at her and cleared his throat in that mock officious manner he was prone to.

"I started to become rather fond of your scowl, actually," she whispered. "I haven't seen you do it lately."

"No," he smiled. He heard her sigh then. And he risked touching her. He used a single finger to touch those freckles on her nose.

"We should get some rest. We have to clear off early tomorrow," came her sleepy words.

"It is tomorrow," he teased pedantically.

"It always is with us." And she closed her eyes.

He had wanted to kiss her again as she drifted off, but he had resisted being so selfish. Once she was sleeping, he made himself turn away from her - to try to reduce the desire he felt a bit.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

The next morning, up and dressed, they both seemed to find conversation oddly more difficult.

Morse checked his pockets one more time and then scanned for any errant belongings. Seeming distracted, he walked for the room's exit where Siobhan stood waiting.

"What?" He asked seeing that she would not open the door for them to leave.

"We do good bye here, I figure. You aren't one for the whole clutch in public." She leaned back against the door and then raised her hands to rest on him as he stepped to her silently. When he kissed her, she sensed how different it was already. Rushed. Wrong. And absent.

"You'll go straight to work?" she asked as she pulled the door open. She walked with her small bag into the hotel's hallway.

"Mmm," he nodded as he stepped out. "Out of time, otherwise. I've a change of clothes at the station."

"Good," she teased, "as those look slept in."

"And I'll get Lewis to drive me home tonight, I suppose."

"God knows what he'll think."

"I have the train ride to figure it out... if I care what he thinks."

They had gotten into the lift, and she punched the buttons now to drop him off in the lobby. Freed up from that task, she found they could only stare at each other.

They lived over an hour apart, that had been one of her constant thoughts that morning. Not that he had expressed an interest in seeing her again. It was beyond her to be coy. Despite what she wanted to be that morning, she knew she was coming off exactly like what she was... an exhausted women who could not hide the attraction and need she felt.

She couldn't take the silence suddenly. "You've got my phone number," she asked, unnecessarily.

"Yes," he said sounding clipped.

She hated herself for the push she'd just given him, mentioning the number. Still, his short answer earned him an eye roll from her.

They'd gotten off the lift and were both standing in the foyer now, seeming awkward in front of the lift's doors. She looked at her watch and then at him. She was beginning to think she was more concerned with getting the Detective Chief Inspector to work that day than he was.

"Morse!" she prompted.

"I don't know what to suggest," he nearly whined. She waited, trying hard not to fill the gap in conversation with ideas of meeting one place or another.

She turned around and battered the lift call button. He tried to place her attitude. Avoidance? Displeasure? He knew what had caused it at least. It was his lack of statement that had done it.

The door dinged open and she walked half in looking horribly impatient. "Back in," she announced.

He was too far ensconced in this personal drama to fight the fact that any trip to the hotel's underground car park was just going to take him further from the train station and his trip back to Oxford.

They stood in silence on the trip down, until he asked her, "Are you busy next weekend?" He sounded so horribly ill at ease over this question that she had begun to pity him.

"No, I'm not busy," she told him as the lift let them out below ground. "Over there," she told him then, pointing out her car.

He followed without a word before managing, "Do you have a preference on where we would meet?" There was a wince then and an anxious scratch at his head.

"We've mucked about too long," She said looking at her watch. "Look, this is my fault. So, get in the car and I'll drive you home."

"That's an hour in the wrong direction for you," he complained.

"I've got permission to come in late because of the course. _**You**_ are already running late. The train will make it worse. And it's all because I've been feeling so ridiculously needy this morning trying to angle a second meeting. So, get in. Please."

He complied silently.

...

By the time they pulled in to his drive, it was decided. She would come up to his place Friday after work.

She swallowed hard and put the car into reverse. As the house door closed on the Inspector, Siobhan wondered what they had just begun.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Morse postponed their meeting. A murder was dropped in his lap and the investigation could not wait the weekend. Throughout the week that followed there were phone calls and more apologies. There was quiet talk and that tight feeling of nervousness in their guts. Each wondered if what they had shared in London had been some sort of fantasy. Either gone or not quite real.

Come the following Friday there was an agreeable, if cautious dinner out. And then more relaxed drinks at his place, late. While she carried the finished glasses to the kitchen, he stood and paced by the bookcase. He fiddled absently with his record collection, and she came up behind him, compelled by the need to touch him.

Her fingers were light on his back. But it all played heavily on his senses. He turned and found her arms around him. There was a constant flow of touches then, punctuated with restrained kisses and uneasy breaths. The effect was a steady ratcheting of the desire they both felt.

Whether it was him or her that began things in earnest then, she wasn't sure. But the kisses had become intense, and they were on his stairs suddenly.

Half way up, she was now facing down the staircase. He looked up at her with his hands on the railings, as if worried she would do something foolish. She stood a stair up making her just the wee bit taller than he was.

There had been a reason they were headed up. He felt it like a tightening in his stomach. But they had stopped here for what felt like very dangerous foreplay. But as she kissed him, the misgivings left him. She had turned things, making them feel heady and somehow wonderfully imprudent.

As he eased back to catch his breath and really look at her, he noticed how the lines around her eyes were so scarce. She was more than 10 years younger. And he couldn't for the life of him figure out why she would be here with him.

He worried there was a tremor to his fingers as he touched her cheek. If she was half as nervous as he was, she was managing not to show it. Her hands were in his hair and she was leaning in to kiss him again. He registered how much he wanted her and how different she was from any other woman he had known.

_Different, yes. Wickedly smart. Funny. Amazing. _

_**And younger**_, his mind supplied again. _In her prime._

_Oh God,_ he thought, freezing. He was half up the stairs, _**beyond**_ wanting her. And there was THAT conversation to still have. He'd forgotten how to approach this, if he had ever known.

He caught her hand to slow her down, to get her attention. And in a voice that betrayed him, he said only. "Contraceptive?" Morse feared he was blushing.

She paused then before simply telling him, "Sorted." He pressed against her and kissed her again, but got lost. It was that horrible policeman's brain. It hated loose ends and round about answers.

"Sorted how?"

She flushed. Obviously, she hadn't wanted to have this conversation.

She leaned back against the railing. "I'm on the Pill. I wanted to wait to tell you. I didn't know what you would think."

"You've been on it because..." _Because she was prepared_, he thought, _because she was a woman of this new age. On the Pill. Partners at the ready. Like that bloke she had just gotten rid of a few months ago._ He dropped his head. "I shouldn't of pried." He was kicking himself for thinking he was somehow special.

"No!" she said instantly seeing he had misunderstood. "I wasn't on it before. Well, I was 10 years ago, but not for the fellow I told you about. We never got to this point. He managed to stop being special before we got 'half way up the stairs,' so to speak. And oddly enough, he had been the most promising thing in ages." She paused, wanting that to sink in for him.

She continued finally in a voice that was less sure. "I didn't want you to know _**you**_ were the reason I had gone on the Pill, because it all seems rather calculating."

"Because we hadn't... " he said before he paused.

"And because the Pill isn't the sort of thing you go on if you figure it's just the once."

"I have been thinking about this since I saw you last and when I have... well, I haven't thought about it being just once. That doesn't mean I won't drive you away."

"Shhhhh," she told him.

"What you said before, Siobhan, about being 'half way up the stairs'..." he said, continuing her metaphor.

"Yes?"

"Just. ... It's been ages. You deserve to know. You are that special."

She pushed off from her place against the wall then, and pulled him along with her up the stairs.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

He came into his kitchen the next morning to find she was doing battle with his cooking implements.

And that she had changed the station on the radio that sat on the counter. Not a good start to what should have been a very nice morning. He was not a man accustomed to overnight guests who upset his habits.

But it was as if he was merely watching the scene. He registered that these things should have bothered him. And they didn't. He was stuck there, staring at the way her neck arched just so, and wondering at the likelihood of a repeat of last night.

_How can I be so vain as to think I am any different from the mass of men? Because, God, I'm pathetically simple,_ _really_, he thought.

One irritation did pierce his self evaluation though. "It's that bloody awful song that was on in your car last week," he declared finally as he pointed to the radio.

"It's oddly ubiquitous," she replied.

"It _**wouldn't be**_ on my usual station," he half snipped.

"I cannot cook to your usual station. It is too early for opera," Siobhan insisted with a smile.

He took a step towards the counter then as if he would adjust the radio. She was in front of him just as quickly.

Her arms went up and around his shoulders.

"I won't dance to this song," he told her.

"I've noticed," she teased.

But his hands had settled nicely at her waist. "What do they even call this?" he said with mock annoyance.

"God knows." Her hips moved against his gently then as she picked out merely every other beat in the chorus. "The pop hit du jour."

"It's inescapable, presumably," he said as he pulled her even closer. "I hear this in every shop I'm in. "

"That's my point," she told him, seductively. "I advise surrender ... Just this once. Because somehow opera does not make me want to do ...this."

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Morse stood at his office window, his eyes vaguely on the parking lot outside. He'd gotten here early today, midway through his week. He had finished his crossword and had taken to fiddling with the radio. Pop music was coming in now. But not that song.

But it could not be long before they played it. And he was right, he noted with a self satisfied smile, as the one song faded into the next. Standing there with that idiot chorus in his head, he could almost feel her pressed up against him the way she had four days previous. He could almost taste the kisses she had given him as she had pretended to hold him hostage there in his kitchen. They wouldn't make it through breakfast, he had predicted. He hadn't had his coffee yet, and he found himself wanting her again.

He wanted her now as he stood in that office, half way between his scheduled visits. He groaned without realizing it.

He didn't hear the door. It was the inordinately cheerful, 'Good morning, sir' that first roused him.

Morse didn't bother to turn around. In fact, he thought it unwise until he'd had a moment to collect himself.

"Oy!" Lewis complained then, noticing the music. "That song is everywhere. You can't get away from it. But I am surprised..."

"Surrender, Lewis. I _**heartily**_ recommend surrender."


	3. Chapter 3

That this odd occurrence had happened twice already this week did not make it any easier to ignore. The Detective Chief Inspector was walking smartly down the hall. And humming.

Strange looked up from his papers as he stood in his doorway, disbelief written on his swollen face. Finally, he called out to Morse with an assessment.

"I don't trust people who hum," the Superintendent said. If the larger man had possessed the imagination or the vocabulary he would have called the response he got an 'evasive and self-satisfied smile.' Strange only knew it made him uneasy. "And just what are you humming anyway?"

"Boléro."

"How is it you can make that sound dirty, Morse?"

The Inspector only laughed in reply. A real, full laugh.

"Are you all right, Morse?" His boss' eyes narrowed, looking for any of a multitude of sins.

The Chief Inspector dropped his head then rather than let his superior glean anything more from his expression.

"Am I all right?" Morse said carefully. "I think so."

"And quite sober?" Strange added quickly, sotto voce.

A thoughtful, but sarcastic, finger to his lips, the Inspector answered him, "Yes. Quite." With that, he turned and moved away down the hall. And quietly resumed his humming.

He couldn't help but hum. There was a note in his pocket. He pushed his hand in to trace its edge and confirm its existence. He still didn't quite believe that Siobhan would have bothered with such an out of fashion thing. But she had. She'd sat down and written out a small, embossed card as soon as she had returned home from his house.

_M._

_I close my eyes and I feel like I'm half way up the stairs._

_With you, _

_S._

He closed his eyes then, navigated the hallway blind for a few steps. And remembered. He had sat down at his desk at home right after he had read her letter for the first time. He'd felt oddly formal, but pleased as he pulled the disused stationary from his bottom drawer.

Even with their phone calls, she had wanted to put pen to paper... to craft a note. The way she had when she had contacted him about coming to London. The thought, the sentiment, the permanence were that important to her.

_S (he wrote in reply)_

_I make that trip a hundred times a day._

_Gladly_

_M_

/ / /

It was Friday. And it was late in the afternoon. Morse capped his pen and pushed the paperwork away with a satisfied sigh.

"Fancy a drink, sir?" Lewis asked, perhaps, too cautiously.

Morse smiled at his sergeant. "Testing me, Lewis?"

"No, sir."

"Yes, sir." Morse mimicked back. "You are. It's Friday. You want nothing better than to have your weekend start. And that does not include a drink with me. So, shove off. And I will do the same." Then in a more conciliatory tone, he called out to the tall man who was now moving for the door. "No thoughts of the office necessary for once. And come Monday, when Strange asks you what you've figured out... tell him I got a new record or something."

"Yes, sir," Lewis managed. But there was a tinge of question in the younger man's voice. And confusion.

It didn't help that Morse chuckled in response to Lewis' expression.

/ / / / / / / / /

Morse's first visit to Siobhan's flat that weekend highlighted for him how much he knew her and how many details there were still to learn.

When she answered his knock there was the reflexive kiss in greeting. A few automatic seeming queries. And then another kiss. Longer and much more real. This one was prompted by her heartfelt, "I'm glad you're here."

Standing there by the door, they wouldn't let go. They passed their hands over one another, as if to reassure themselves it was all quite true.

The courtship was so rigidly compartmentalized, they both saw in that shared moment. They spoke on the phone each day, but could not see or touch each other. And then on the visits, these times physically together, there was the pent up need for contact. The need to hold. And to sense. And it was speech then that they could not always manage.

There was jazz music coming from the stereo, he realized gradually. And the smells of cooking coming in from the kitchen. He toured her place with his eyes. The living room was dominated by stained bookcases that reached to the ceiling. A comfortable couch faced them. The bookcase's shelves were filled with CDs and books.

And there on a corner shelf he saw a well worn violin case atop an untidy stack of sheet music.

He walked for the bookcase, unconsciously assessing everything as he went. "You still play," the detective in him surmised.

"Hmmm?" she asked from behind him. "Yes. Not as well as I did. Nor as often."

His fingers were flipping the edges of the music now. "And is this the same Bach piece..."

"The same one I heard in your car all those months ago? I'm sure I don't remember," she said, coyly. Siobhan headed for the kitchen to tend to dinner. She called out to him from there, "I told you how much I liked that Bach piece. Did you think I was only flirting?"

He smiled at that.

"Would you play for me. Later? It doesn't have to be now."

"I've never been to see your choir," she countered.

"Someone has to go first," he said a tad slyly.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / /

"I missed you," he told her as she worked at the stove. It was the third time he had said it already that night. Each time it had come out a little differently somehow. Amazed. Relieved. Or intent- sounding, it seemed to Siobhan.

She didn't mind hearing it, she decided. It didn't frighten her as horribly possessive. Instead, it endeared him to her because, she realized, she had missed him too.

She turned from the stove this last time he'd said it, and kissed him quickly. And they stood then and stared at each other for an odd amount of time. Each was lost in thought, it seemed. Each struggling to figure out this new territory they shared.

They had known each other months at this point. And had logged dozens of hours on the telephone, discussing the mundane and personal. Even the philosophical. Still, they had managed only a few nights together before this.

_So, where things could feel comfortable and easy on the phone, having him here was... _she felt herself flush and gave up on that thought as too difficult to finish.

She laughed and looked down suddenly, breaking their eye-locked silence.

"What?" he asked, laughing now. He moved a little closer then and stroked her arm as if to draw her out. He could say more without having to talk now, he realized. They had that connection, and as a man who often felt his speech with women was fumbling, that connection thrilled him.

"I feel like I know you so well," Siobhan tried to explain.

"Yes."

"But you've never even been here before. There's that horrible, first-date sort of feeling," she lamented.

"I know. I've thought about that, too," he told her.

"I've been a nervous wreck," she admitted. "I cleaned. I hid the laundry. I dug out a bloody cook book for God's sake." Her head lolled about as if she was horribly shamed by all this. She stood silently in front of him now, her chin on her chest.

He pressed closer and tipped her chin back, feeling brave. She closed her eyes and smiled into the kiss she knew was coming. And when he was done kissing her for the moment, he told her, "You are even prettier when you blush."

She had wondered when the first dangerous kiss of the evening would come. When would she first feel that pull in her that overrode everything else? When would she feel the awkwardness and the uncertainty replaced, and just want him?

With his hands on her and the feel of him still on her lips, she knew they were at the beginning of that seduction... if she followed him down this path.

She kissed him back gently. Testing what she felt. Then upped the ante slightly with the way she poured herself into it. Finally, she made herself stop. Her head was resting head on his shoulder now, but her hands still traveled disobediently along his sides.

"What are we doing?" he asked.

"I dunno," she hedged and shrugged. And almost shyly then she kissed him again. Once. Twice. Then she let the kisses deepen until a need for restraint had her tightening her grasp on his shirt. She broke it off, but he lingered there. She understood his reluctance to pull apart, because she felt it, both in herself and in his touch.

His lips were light on her neck now, making her shiver. Making her wonder.

"What are we doing?" It was her turn to ask the question this time.

"Whatever you tell me we're doing," came his voice at her ear.

"The dinner needs to cook for 45 minutes," she told him. But even as she gave that warning, she was turning her head just so to have him kiss her more.

"Forty five minutes?" he prompted.

"Or I could just turn it off." She was speaking in something akin to a sigh now.

Still, he wouldn't say it. He wouldn't admit how much he wanted her.

He pulled back to watch her, to see if he could tell what she was feeling. She put a finger to his lips as if to forestall any more kisses.

But his hands were at her hips. His finger tips already under her shirt. He started slowly then, seeming almost non-committal about the way he was ghosting across her skin. She closed her eyes and blew out an unsteady breath. He expected her to tell him his tactics weren't quite fair. But she didn't say anything. Suddenly, she just kissed him. And he found she had ably transferred the rush of emotions she had been feeling back to him.

"I haven't shown you the whole flat," she whispered hoarsely, as she eased away. And she turned to the stove and switched the burners off. She walked him slowly through the living room for the bedroom then.

"I bought new sheets," came another of her confessions as they stood in the doorway. "And a pillow."

"I'm flattered," he said only half teasingly.

She climbed up onto the comforter and patted the space beside her while he finally kicked off his shoes.

"You should probably just sign me up for a psych eval," she told him. "I bought these because all my other sheets are from my grandmother."

They were talking of commonplace things now. But watching each other. She bit her lip as she followed the motions of his hands. Small tugs freed his shirt from his trousers. And when he met her eyes then, it was a more nervous motion that left two more buttons hanging undone. The two of them were cooled off from the heat that was the kitchen, perhaps. But they were onto a slow cook now, like that dinner she had abandoned.

Once he was finally lying down with her, she asked, "Is this the way it's going to be? Fifteen minutes in a room with you, and I'm dragging you to bed?"

"Does that bother you?"

"Yes...Well, no. It's not just for the sex," she said managing to blush and make him smile. "I think it's me being selfish. I like having all your attention when we are together like this."

"You are suggesting," he started with a slow grin, "that I am not just oversexed, but attention deficient?"

"Forgive me, and I'll make it up to you." Her hand worked under the hem of his shirt then and ran warmly across his back.

"How?" he asked as he slowly snugged her hips in against him. "How are you going to make it up to me?"

"I'll play the violin for you... but later," she added a bit shyly. "After..."

He kissed her then and left his words behind him. When she touched him again she watched his face, sure that she could see whole sentences get lost.

She loved that the normally precise and clear talents for speech that he had when being the detective were lost with her. That when she possessed him he found himself spell bound. Mute. Or at least limited. Held to heartfelt single syllables.

... ... ... ...

When she finally pulled out her violin for him later that night, she sat him down on her couch and then insisted on standing behind it.

"Not with you looking at me," she told him in answer to the unspoken question. "Nor me at you, I fear."

He knew then, listening to her play, that they were moving toward being comfortable with each other. Truly comfortable. He knew that sharing certain things was harder than others, but that with the right person they were at least possible.

She didn't play for just anyone, he came to understand. Not because she played poorly (she didn't) but because she used to play so much better. Because the violin was a reminder of youth and the dreams we lose or at least replace.

That each of us has our own thing which is most difficult to share, Morse had already known.

And when the flat was quiet and dark and she was wrapped around him that night, she would explain it to him. She would make another of her confessions. Playing for him was as much about having to leave university as it was about the violin itself. When she left school, she walked away from more than a degree in classics. She didn't know it at the time, but she was closing a whole chapter in her life.

"I don't always know what to tell you," she whispered. "What to leave out or let wait. I don't want to be some horribly complicated woman."

"You can't get to a certain age and not be a bit complicated," he assured her.

"I loved to play when I was at University. I was in a quartet. The lovely black attire. The terribly serious demeanor," she said with a smile he could hear. "And I was doing well with my degree. I had this vision I would end up teaching somewhere. Pink faced, eager little things at some day school would just rave about their Latin teacher, I was sure.

"But I dropped out. It's nothing scandalous," she explained. "That was when my father died. I went home and there were my brothers to manage. My mother went from bad to worse, psychologically. And somehow I never got back. I never got back to the degree or the violin."

He wanted to say the right thing then, but doubted he was capable. He hoped the way he held her now would tell her something. He wanted there to be as much comfort in the touch that traveled her arm as there was in his whispered, "I'm sorry."

She sighed, pushing the past away. Then she burrowed deeper into his arms. When she kissed his shoulder it told told him things were better now. Lighter. Easy.

"I would have been very eager if you'd been my Latin teacher," he told her.

She chuckled. He suspected he was becoming more capable with communicating all these emotions to her. But there his legendary vanity stopped, because it was she who made him more capable, he knew.

... ... ...

When he got into his empty office on Monday morning, he pulled out his stationary. He smiled a bit, trying to picture her getting his envelope.

_S- _

_A week of dinners for one to look forward to _

_and you not here to tell me it can wait. _

_It seems horribly unjust._

_Esurine?_

_M- _

He had his reply by Thursday, and it was burning a hole in his pocket at work on Friday.

_M._

_Dinner can wait._

_I can't, _

_S._

He tipped his chair back and put his feet up. He took note of the number of hours left before he could possibly get home to meet her.

And he started to hum.

/ / / / / / / /

**A/N: Esurine, I hope, is Latin for "Are you hungry?"**


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: Much of this plays on things directly from the episode Driven to Distraction. In that, Morse is so obsessed with finding someone guilty that he takes advantage of the (completely illegal) chance to go through a car dealer's records without a warrant. Siobhan was frustrated with the pace of solving the murders and began to see the chance to access the records as an acceptable lapse. So, she stayed to help Morse that night, but Lewis walked out. **_

_**The 'It's stupid, I know, but I can't let go of the wheel,' is, I believe, a direct quote from the episode. Not the most heroic of statements. Some writer was going for vulnerability there, I think. I let it stand.**_

_**A video I found on YouTube that covers much of the episode is entitled**_

**Inspector Morse - Driven to Distraction/Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)_. youtube(.com)/ watch?v=L6jlnLpbWIw_**

* * *

There was nothing to say.

There was nothing that _**could**_ be said, perhaps, seemingly beyond speech as they were in her bed.

They lay there like lingering evidence. Frozen, guilty, and revealed. For their own examination, should they be that brave. Her one arm lay beneath his head. The other thrown leaden across his back.

He surprised her with the tight hold he still had on her there in the dark. His hair was soft against her cheek. His breath still uncontrolled and so pleasantly raw. He couldn't possibly know that it all provoked her. Pricked her thoughts. Her heart.

He managed to kiss her, and she hummed her satisfaction. But it was a satisfaction she couldn't let herself enjoy.

_There is nothing that needs to be said,_ she told herself again. There was nothing at all to say.

God, what a lie. Nothing? Then why couldn't she stop the words that thudded through her?

_I love you_, she wanted to say. _Morse. I love you._

_What am I doing here with you like this and not telling you?_

_Why can't I say it?_ Because I suspect it's one step forward and two steps back with you. Because I've seen you throw up those walls. And I will not provoke that.

...

He was asleep now. His arms had gone slack around her. So, she shifted. Pulled the covers up over him.

Siobhan couldn't see the scars he'd gotten during their case together, but she knew from memory where they lay. She let her fingers trace the worst of them, and she leaned in to kiss his elbow.

They never spoke of that investigation at length. They barely even mentioned it, because it had gone so very badly. It had left him wounded in more ways than one.

Morse had been horribly blinded by the circumstantial evidence against Boynton. As time had worn on, it had felt as if they were flailing about while the real killer stayed resolutely ahead of them.

Morse, she knew, viewed the entire investigation as an embarrassment. As a black mark on his record. Even more, he felt it as some personal failing.

By the time the case was wrapped up, it was as if there was a great distance between the two of them. He was feeling culpable, and it made him unreachable.

She had tried to provide some comfort. In hind sight, it had been as ridiculous as it was imprudent. Trying to make a stubborn man forgive himself? Desperately wanting him to see her differently? They were impossible things with a man who did things at his own pace and only when it suited him.

On the day the case was finally solved, he took his two steps backwards, even as she was falling for him.

/ / / /

The knowledge that Derek Whittaker, the driving instructor, was their murderer struck Siobhan and Lewis so suddenly as they conferred together. And with a shared look they both realized that Morse was at the track, driving with him.

Odd that they should both panic so. There really wasn't any other word for it. The two sergeants didn't speak as they raced for the driving school.

Siobhan's first impression as they reached the track was that Morse's car was completely out of control. It skidded to a halt 50 yards from where Lewis managed to stop. Fear had her running for Morse almost before Lewis had gotten their car out of gear.

She pulled the door open and heaved an audible sigh of relief seeing that he was basically all right.

"It's stupid, I know, but I can't let go of the wheel," Morse had said. Finally, she raised her hand slowly to touch his, feeling so much empathy for him in that moment. He'd been stabbed in the left forearm she could see now. Three or four gashes. But the first matter was just getting the inspector out of the car, she decided.

On the far side of the car Lewis quickly assessed Whittaker. And found him decidedly dead, his knife sticking out of his chest.

"You'll need to call someone," Siobhan said toward Lewis. "Ambulance. And the M. E."

Lewis nodded and turned to walk back to his car.

"He's beyond an ambulance," Morse managed tartly.

"For you. Not him," Siobhan breathed quietly. Her hand was still on one of his, and he seemed to be focusing on it. She squeezed.

"God, I want to get out of this car," he said with another sideways glance at the body of the man who had tried to kill him.

"Let's do it then," she whispered. And without thinking, she found she had brought her other hand up to rest on his back. He didn't flinch or seem to be bothered by it. In fact, she felt his grip on the steering wheel lessen.

"Tell him, no ambulance," Morse said.

"Might I have a look at your arm before we decide that?" He was turning now, getting his legs out of the car. She knelt in front of him and took the injured arm gently. "Not too bad. You're lucky, I'd say."

"I feel many, many things right now," he ground out. "Lucky is not one of them, oddly enough. Mostly, I feel like a damn fool." He was struggling to get up suddenly, forcing her to stand and take a step away. She hadn't realized how close she'd gotten. "I want out of this car," he told her as she worked to take it all in.

"All right," she finally agreed. She guided him out with her hand to his forearm. Then she forced him to take up a spot leaning against the car. Gently, she tugged at the sleeve of his jacket, extracting just the injured arm. He raised an eyebrow at the handling he was receiving now. And she smiled as a sort of apology.

"I don't suppose you are the type to carry a clean handkerchief?" she asked him. "I want to put pressure on this."

"Inside coat pocket. There's even gloves in there, I think. Max used to chide me on not carrying them. It's probably the same set he gave me." He was close to babbling now, and not complaining of any pain from his wounds. There must be a lot of adrenaline still in him, she decided. She met his eyes then, and he paused before telling her, "Those gloves are probably older than you." It was a strangely personal thing to say.

"Doubtful," she finally blurted out. "But maybe they are older than DC Dierdan? That fellow who is always first to open the door for you?" she tried to remind him. But her joke had not even gotten a smile out of him. Siobhan began to worry.

She got situated with his hand on her shoulder and her palm providing pressure to the wounds. She put her other hand inside his jacket then to have a hold on his ribs should he start to fall.

_Should he start to fall? Who was she kidding? She wanted her hands on the man. He was hurting. Physically. Emotionally. And she would have wrapped him up in her arms at that moment if she could have..._

"You would insist on leading." She missed his quip for a moment. But then saw they did look like an ass backwards ballroom couple. She laughed. "And you are making a mess of your blouse," he finished.

"I'm slightly more worried about you," she said with a perverse emphasis on the 'slightly.'

He looked away as if uncomfortable with her concern. "Cancel the ambulance," was all he said at last.

"Lewis," she called out over the car. "He says..."

"I know. I know. No ambulance. I didn't bother. I'll just bring the first aid kit," the tall man hollered back. As Lewis approached the corner of the car, Siobhan hurriedly stepped half away from Morse. She felt like a teenager caught out by the chaperone, but Lewis didn't seem to notice her unease or how close she had been standing to his boss. He put the first aid kit on the roof of the car without seeming to even take in the scene in front of him. "I'm going to be round that corner or the follow on units will completely miss us when they come over the hill," Robbie explained hurriedly, and he gestured behind him with a thumb.

Siobhan nodded in agreement.

Morse groaned once they were alone again. "What a bloody mess I've made of this!"

She wanted to console him, but he was not at all the sort. Besides, there were no words. She just bit her lip.

And slipped her hand back inside his jacket.

"You can't argue with that assessment, can you? I buggered this," he said, seeming unaware that she was near enough to embrace him.

"It went badly," she said quietly. "We focused on the wrong man. But..."

"But what? It's all alright at the end of the day because the murderer managed to impale himself with his own weapon?" he demanded heatedly.

"It's done. You managed to not get yourself killed, and **HE** will not be stalking any more women."

"Completely, bloody botched," he fumed. "Beginning to end. Damned..."

"Have you _**never**_ mucked something up before?" she accused with a bit of impatience. She wanted to take hold of his face and make him look at her. But she had to content herself with chastising his shoulder, he had turned away so violently. "I know you are supposed to be a clever sort, but are you just that lucky, too? You've never had to take one on the chin before like the rest of us mere mortals?"

Instead of seeming angry with her outburst, he had turned back to look at her. He raised his eyebrows at her as a sort of neutral assessment. "Mere mortals?" he asked with a faintly amused look. "You know how to hurt a man."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be getting angry with you," she told him. "I'm completely out of line." She threw in a 'Sir' for good measure, but she suspected the word sounded as out of place as it felt.

"At least you aren't looking at me like you pity me any more."

"It _**wasn't**_ pity," she assured him. That was all she could tell him right then, although the rest of the emotion thudded through her.

_You are falling for him. A completely stupid move, Siobhan. And you are entirely bloody obvious about it, too._

There was a unit arriving now, and she knew that as good as it felt to stand there with him. To hear him joke finally. That she should help him save face and get out of there. He seemed all right with her coddling. But it would not do to have anyone else see it.

She shifted away from him a half step which only highlighted how closely she had been holding him. "M.E.'s here. Crime scene unit, too," she whispered. "They're talking to Lewis. They'll be over here..."

"Siobhan, get me..."

"Out of here. I know," she told him quietly. And she was thinking, S_omeone should get __**me**__ out of here before I make a bigger a fool of myself._ Ever since she had taken that first liberty and touched him, she couldn't stop. She felt as if he belonged to her, at least in those moments. "As soon as you are done talking to them, I'll drive you out."

He tried to pinch open the button at his neck then, but his tie was in the way. She reached up to help without thinking. She focused on the knot as it slipped through her fingers, not daring to look at him. A small part of her was screaming, _'Hurry before the world gets over here and sees you undressing him.'_ Because to her it did suddenly feel like that. Her hands turned to stone then with self consciousness.

"Damn," she groaned. And his hand was tangled with hers then and together they dragged the offending garment off.

"Sorry," she told him. She was apologizing for being sexually flustered. God, would he know that?

She reached to push the tie into his coat pocket and his hand intercepted her. Again she found herself apologizing. She lifted his injured arm off her shoulder finally and brought it across his chest where he could hold it. And she took the last step away from him just as the crime scene unit rounded the edge of the car.

"All right?" she queried. She shivered then and rubbed at her arms, because she felt cold now that she wasn't touching him.

"Fine," came his simple reply. But he stayed leaning against the car. His right hand cradling his left high in front of him.

"I'll be right back," she said, quietly. He wasn't even looking at her any more. She took a deep breath, and told herself to be glad he wasn't, because she knew that she was horribly flushed.

She watched then from next to Lewis' car. Morse's conversation with the crime scene pair was winding up quickly. There was the nodding. The new sergeant was taking a step backwards.

She took that as a sign to return with the keys to Lewis' car. The uniformed officer moved away as Siobhan approached. Morse's eyes were cast down and he took a step toward her. She extended a hand as if she would steady him, and he looked up to glare at her.

"Sorry. I'm a worrier." She was lying. She just suddenly could not stop thinking about how good it had felt to have her hand lie on his ribs. How lovely it had been to act possessive of him and have him not withdraw. She didn't want to give up that closeness that they had had. To have it be over.

But how pitiful was she, she wondered, that she would take advantage of a man half in shock.

"I'll get you to the hospital. Lewis is handling the scene," she said in a more professional voice. He nodded in a resigned sort of way.

As she drove him to the hospital, she could foresee all that was left of her time with this man. A day, maybe two, of paper work and pulling apart the temporary office. And then she would have to go back to her home unit. There would be no telling Morse how she felt. She could see him pulling away with every moment. There would be no admitting anything out of the ordinary had transpired. But she would be left with the feeling of an unanswered attraction. There would be that pang of loss and the worry over how she would face that bloke back home.

_Hopeless, fucking hopeless,_ she chided herself. She felt positively ill. She had gone and fallen for this man and it was obvious that he would never feel the same.

The only sure result was that she would never be able to look at that would-be boyfriend the same way again.

/ / / / / / / / /

She smiled a touch now as she passed her hand over Morse's forearm where it lay on the blankets. Her life after the case had gone better than predicted, obviously. She had gotten up the courage to be impulsive over him yet again. She had invited him to London. And now, here they were. A couple. Even if she couldn't explain how she felt to him.

He was awake suddenly, pulling his arm away.

"Worshiping my wounds?" The words were tense.

"That day," she began before she trailed off pitifully. She would need to skirt the issue she knew. "Before that day," she said starting again. "I was attracted to you ... I had enjoyed talking and the times when we were alone. But _**that**_ day."

"That day was an improvement on all of that?" he said sounding sad. "Because you like your men wounded. Tragic. Lacking."

"I knew you would be like this," she said removing her touch. "That's why I never mentioned it. The closer I get... You don't even know how hard it is for someone to get hold of you, do you? How hard it is just to get your attention. Sometimes, it is as if you are never not moving," she complained. "I don't get you like this often enough," she told him, meaning their night together. "All of your attention. And you were like that that day next to the car. Sort of... holding still so I could catch up. You were... open, telling me how you felt. It all overwhelmed me. You almost getting yourself killed. The sight of you wounded. I wanted to touch you. I was sure that when I did there would be a palpable sort of spark. Something undeniable and that you would feel it too."

"I did," he whispered.

"You never let on," she said shaking her head. "There was just that knowledge at the back of my head that the case was over, and I would have to forget about ever seeing you again. I thought I had made such a fool out of myself."

"No, **_that_** was me."

"Forget the case. Forget that embarrassment. Don't you remember the way I was fawning over you? Touching you?" she asked as she passed her hand over his ribs now. "And liking it. I liked being useful. I liked _**you**_ needing me. Only you didn't really need me as much as I pretended you did," she sighed. "And, you were finally standing still long enough to _**see**_ me. You thought it was pity. Or some horrible maternal instinct. And the truth was I just wanted to touch you. As right as it felt, it was so short lived. It was one step forward and two steps back," she surprised herself by saying. "The next day and until I left, it was as if nothing had happened between us. You threw up those walls. And you moved away from me every chance you got. You even stopped calling me 'Siobhan.'"

"Until that last day, when you came to say good bye," he corrected softly.

"Yes, when it was too late. When I had to wonder which you was the real one. The cold bastard that had been sulking about. Or the man I'd said good bye to."

"I had buggered that case..."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does!" he said too loudly. "I could have gotten you sacked, letting you help that night we went through the records. Ethically, legally, I was completely in the wrong."

"_**That's **_what you were thinking about?"

"And that you were going back to someone else," he said sounding hurt. "How could I believe what had happened meant anything? In my mind, as defeatist as I am, I couldn't see how it could have been anything but pity that made you care. And I was fairly awash in self pity over that mess as it was."

"So, you closed me out?"

"It wouldn't have led to anything. It was the timing. It's me. It's stupid, I know. Sooner or later, I would ruin it. Sooner, most likely. I still think that way." He paused then, and she could see there was more. "Every time I looked at you as that case wound up," he whispered then, "all I could think was that he was a lucky sod, that man you had back home. I hadn't minded you fussing over me, because I figured it was the limit of what I could ever have from you."

"Not by half," she assured him. _Because I love you_, she thought.

"The limit," he explained, "not because you couldn't give more. But because I would ruin anything more."

_Two steps back_, she thought then.


	5. Chapter 5

A few weeks later found Morse staying at her house. He felt more comfortable now, Siobhan could tell. He had hung his clothes in the closet finally, instead of using the hooks on the door. He had learned to help himself to things around the place with something approximating ease.

Later there was another quiet, but unmistakable milestone. "Aren't you going to ask me what my first name is?" he asked somberly from his spot in her bed.

"I think I know more important things about you already," she told him half seriously. "I decided details like that could wait."

"You don't care if you don't know the first name of the man you are sleeping with?"

She looked at him a long time and shook her head as if bewildered by him. The words came gently then. "I figured you felt more strongly about it than I did. So if you _**wanted**_ me to know..."

It was acceptance he saw in her eyes then and an almost impossible understanding. It triggered something in him, but words failed him. He kissed her as if to let her know. He kissed her until they were both happily breathless. Until it felt as though the world was just a tiny thing that they were floating above.

"Endeavour," he said.

"Endeavour?" she repeated, calmly.

"My parents named me Endeavour."

"And you don't like it?"

"No. I don't like it," he said with a little bitterness.

"But you don't like anything better. All these years and you've never just picked something else."

"I can't explain it," he said sounding frustrated.

"You don't have to. If you had wanted to be free of it, you would be. But this means you need to be alright with me calling you 'Morse.' And 'Love,'" she said with a pleasant lilt.

"Strangely enough..." He managed a bit of his relieved-seeming smile now.

"What about something like 'Dev.' Has anyone ever called you that?"

"Only for a little while. My step mother tortured me with calling me 'Endeavour,' knowing I hated it. My half sister, Joyce, tried to soften it and call me 'Dev.'"

"But it was all or nothing for you?" she teased with a creeping grin and a finger that traced his chest.

"Do I seem that unyielding?" he asked knowingly.

She only smiled broader.

"You liked having a little sister, though, I can tell," she finally said.

"I did," he admitted, quietly. "She kept me human. Well, as human as I am."

"Younger siblings do that, I suppose."

Morse knew, that as her mother withdrew, Siobhan was left with the care of the younger brothers. But he didn't know how she truly felt about all of that. Only that at this distance she seemed reconciled to what had happened.

"It must have been overwhelming at the time to take care of them."

"It was difficult... at the time," Siobhan finally allowed. "But they're all grown up now. I've stopped worrying about them and tried just to get along with them. And we do get along, which is lovely. I don't resent anyone for what happened. Not my brothers and not my mother. Really."

There was a strange kinship in these strained pasts that they shared. He could sense in her that they had talked of it enough. So, he merely nodded to her and pulled her a little closer.

Xxxxxx

Two weeks later Morse was frustrated by their inability to manage a weekend together. Siobhan had been busy and their phone conversations had been tense and palpably lacking. Her mood had been uncharacteristically sour. The inspector in him couldn't blame her; he knew what it was like to puzzle over a case.

She couldn't possibly get away to his house, and he wondered at the limits to his selfishness because he wanted her here with him, nonetheless.

"I've got the next two days off. I'll come out to you," he told her over the phone.

"I can't take any time off, Morse!"

"I know. That's all right," he half stammered. "Maybe I'll help you think."

Siobhan bit down on her reply. She loved him, not that she'd had the courage to tell him. Yes, she wanted to see him. But everything was so horribly complicated. How would she think at all if he was here?

...

"You're really here." It was a horrible way to greet him. Siobhan immediately apologized and put her arms around him and squeezed. "I'm completely out of sorts," she finished, sounding sad and contrite.

"And I'm selfish," he whispered into her hair. "I just wanted to see you. I know you're busy. I'll go back in the morning."

"Are you hungry?" she asked, trying to rally. "I didn't cook. Just stuff for sandwiches. A salad. Or something that used to look like a salad," she said with a tired hand to her head. He followed her into the kitchen and there were notes on the table. Transcripts from interviews.

"We're sure we've got the right man. But it's all circumstantial. He was in for an identity parade, but the witness seemed scared," she explained. "Wouldn't say a thing."

Morse nodded understanding. He quickly summed things up as his eyes scanned the table top.

"Assaults on women. No fatalities. All young?"

Siobhan just nodded in tired fashion.

/ / / / / / /

"Do you need me in there?" she'd said into the phone an hour later. It was obviously a work call, Morse could tell as he stood in the next room. And it was clear something had gone quite wrong with the case from the sound of Siobhan's voice.

"They let him go only about 6 hours ago," she explained with a sigh as soon as she laid the phone down. "They had to. There just wasn't enough evidence to hold him. And now it seems, the last girl I interviewed about him, our last victim, killed him. God knows, she isn't admitting it, but she does say she and a group of mates went to visit our suspect a few hours ago and that he ended up dead as a result."

"And they have cooked up a self defense scheme," he assessed knowingly. He looked at the ceiling. "Christ," he said. "I'm sorry, Siobhan."

Her hands on her hips, she moved for the living room as if unwilling or unable to stand still.

Watching her pace, he remembered their case together, and the grief and frustration she had obviously felt when another victim had been found. As he had walked into the crime scene that night, she had sniffed back her tears and looked off away from him.

_'Not very professional of me,' she had said quickly in that dismal room. "I know."_

_'It's alright. I feel the same.' His arm had come around her then. And stayed. As she poured out her complaints against fate and their abilities, he had squeezed her just a little tighter. For the barest moment then he had worried that she would rebuke him, but instead he had felt her posture soften against him._

Morse watched her now and wanted to offer up some similar comfort. But it was too early, he could tell. This was rage she was feeling now, and she was backing away. She shut herself into the bathroom quickly.

He waited. And when she came out, she poured herself into his arms. Something in him realized then that this was exactly what she needed. _**And more,**_ it was exactly what he wanted. In that moment, he could see the distance they had come. This, comforting her now, was natural and easy. Right and full.

And he knew why it was all of those things, because the answer came to him with a clarity that didn't just ring through his brain, but echoed through his chest.

"I love you, Siobhan." He thought he managed those words fairly well. Excusably well, given how long it had been since he had felt such a thing.

She tightened her hold on him. Then kissed his neck.

She was sniffing back tears again, he could tell, but faintly smiling now. "Oh, God, Morse. I love you, too."

/ / / /


	6. Chapter 6

**_A/N: I seemed to have taken a hiatus on the Morse! Not sure how that happens. I do not write to a schedule. I follow the hopping of the fuzzy tailed plot bunny. And he naughtily led me astray. I have been writing Bates/Anna for Downton Abbey and Esther/Jarndyce for Bleak House, cranking out another chapter of LEWIS, AND desperately trying to get my Harry Potter fic done after only two years. This, blessedly shorter fic should be done in two or three more chapters which are already sketched out. _**

**_Thank you so much for reading. It means the world to me to know that what I write gets read_**

**_I dedicate this chapter to every single woman who has ever been handed a baby to hold for ulterior motives..._**

/ / / /

Christmas was fast approaching, and in addition to all the other pressures of the season, there was the need for Morse and Siobhan to decide what if anything they would make of the holiday together. She had been invited to spend the day at one of her brother's, but she knew better than to suggest to Morse that he go with her. She worked at a compromise.

She and Morse would go to the Christmas Eve concert he wanted to attend and spend a quiet Christmas at his house. Then, they would take a week's holiday together. Hopefully, he would consent to at least stopping in to see her family as part of that trip.

"So this trip is a pretense," he quickly surmised, "to get us up near your brother's house for a family dinner."

"Not pretense. It's convenience. And it's just an average family dinner. Not the huge hassle that would have been Christmas day with them." She was frustrated over this, but she couldn't manage to be mad at him, seeing his unease. "You haven't done the 'meet the family' thing in quite a while," she said more gently. "Have you?"

"No. I haven't."

"So, just pretend it's dinner with friends." The man still looked decidedly pale. "It's a week we get to spend away from work and together," she continued cautiously. "You get to pick what we do, except for one night. Dinner. At my brother's house."

He groaned and looked up at the ceiling as if hoping for divine help. And she knew she had him then.

... ... ... ... ...

From his stiff posture in her bed that night, she sensed they were about to have another of his worried conversations that he felt were better held in the dark. "I'm not that far off from turning 50, you know."

"You are not just telling me this because you want a big party, are you?" she teased softly.

"I know that we get on well. But the age difference is going to be all your family sees."

"Oh, Love. You could be my age exactly and they would have some sort of opinion! My brothers are over protective, perhaps. Maybe they'll whisk me aside and want to know what I possibly see in you, and if you really make me happy. At that point, their wives will slap them, tell them to mind their own business, and we will all get back to normal."

"Grand," came his sarcastic assessment.

/ / / / / / / /

It took Morse a few minutes to come up with the head count as the people moved about a great deal and they did all bear a certain resemblance to each other. There were 3 of her brothers there. Two with wives. And then there were the children. Five kids. Morse quickly noted that there were 3 who were mobile enough to get underfoot and spread their food everywhere. The two infants were handed about, especially in Siobhan's direction, he saw.

It must be some horrible test of nerves for childless, single women to be continually offered infants to hold and then surreptitiously evaluated. But Siobhan seemed to take it all in stride. She was resting against the door jamb while she shifted a young Tommy.

"Hold him," she prompted, leaning a bit closer to the shocked looking inspector.

"Must I?" Morse whispered back.

With a slight nod in the direction of the assembled Maitlands, Siobhan told him, "You do want to pass and get it over with, right?"

Without waiting for an objection, the boy's aunt handed him over. An inexperienced Morse was mindful to place his hands exactly as she had.

Then she needlessly made at straightening her blouse. And took a sip from her drink at the table.

Morse looked at Tommy like he was sizing up a witness. And he formed some small appreciation for the 10 month old.

"He seems rather alert," he told Siobhan. "It's as if he's taking it all in."

"They do have brains, Morse," Siobhan teased. "It's scientifically proven. There are teeny, tiny, little brains inside their skulls."

"This is all part of the standard fare then?" the inspector asked, jumping ahead.

"Handing the little ones off to me? Oh, yes. I'm the eldest. At least 10 years overdue on having babies as far as this lot is concerned. And they figure it really all just comes down to giving me a little nudge."

"And when you bring a man along?"

She sighed. Really, part of the reason she loved this man was that he was a such an intelligent sort, but that sometimes got tiring.

"Yes, on the two occasions previous when a man has bravely accompanied me home for dinner, the poor sod has found one of my sisters-in-law handing him a baby to hold. I didn't want that little surprise evaluation happening to you. So..."

"**You** handed me the baby for them to see," he said laughing. "You beat them to it."

"You are so clever, I could eat you up," she announced in an odd little voice as she took Tommy back.

"Which of us are you addressing?" he asked, seeming amused.

"You decide." She leaned in and kissed him then. She prayed he wouldn't know it, but she was indulging herself. It was a fantasy, perhaps, holding a happy child and kissing the man she loved. She walked away quickly to return Tommy, before she was caught at it.

... ... ... ...

At the end of the evening, Morse helped her on with her coat, and she patted his lapels where they lay on his chest. "Would you get the car warmed up, and I'll be out in a tick?" Her voice was not exactly strained, but it conveyed the message. She needed to talk to someone in the house without him there.

He gave her half a smile and nodded. She replied with a silent kiss to his cheek and an unnecessary hand to his face that moved as if she would remove some lipstick from him.

He thanked the hostess one last time and then ducked his head and pawed after his car keys. Peeking up as he walked for the door, he saw Siobhan in the kitchen, leaning against a counter top. He placed her expression as an attempt at seeming patient.

...

"A round of thumbs up," she whispered to him as they stood by the car ten minutes later. "My sisters-in-law are quite happy I am finally dating a grown up and someone who is not an intellectual deficient."

"Well spotted on their part," he told her sarcastically.

"My brothers..." she started.

"One of whom, Michael, is spying on us from the window, it might please you to know."

She groaned in exaggerated exasperation. "Kiss me then," she said unromantically.

"You've gone insane," he assessed.

"No. You see, Michael is the one who figured it is a passionless consolation match for the two of us in our sorry, middle age."

"Oh, God, youth is decidedly wasted on the young," Morse said wickedly.

"And imagination is obviously _**completely**_ absent," she said as she drew herself in closer to him by pulling at his coat.

He smiled at that and held her tighter. "I love you," he told her happily. He kissed her chastely on the forehead then.

"Kiss me like that and you are completely proving his point!" Siobhan complained. Her voice sounded like it should be followed by a teenager's foot stamp.

"No, I'm just winding you up." Morse kissed her properly then and for far longer than necessary to quench the curiosity of the 24 year old voyeur at the window.

/ / / / / / / /

Siobhan had yawned and near staggered into their room She felt immediately tired now that the social engagement was over and deemed a success.

But she could see her dear inspector was far from tired. Morse pulled at his ear as he paced. This was an agitated state of thinking Siobhan had seen only when he was contemplating a perplexing crime. She saw him stop finally, and he was rubbing at his neck now as if quite pained.

She gave him a wide berth, which was next to impossible in the little room they were sharing. He picked up the phone without warning then.

"Morse. It's 10:30," she informed him gently as the man dialed.

"Joyce," he said into the mouth piece. "It's me. Yes. Yes, Happy Christmas to you, too. I'm sorry I haven't called before now." He spoke to his half sister then briefly, covering all those items required. Her kids. The jobs. The weather. The surviving relations. And then he managed the difficult bit.

"As it turns out, I'm not that far off from you at the moment. A friend and I are on holiday and, if it was all right, we could stop in?" Yes, a _**friend,**_ Joyce," he complained. There was a pause then and an eye roll. "Not a man, no."

Siobhan had to smile at this exchange. Joyce seemed to be giving her brother all manner of good natured grief. Siobhan decided she liked the woman already.

...

At the end of their short visit with Joyce and her family, he had stood by the car talking with his niece and nephew. Siobhan had lingered on the porch to say good bye to Joyce. Morse watched the exchange surreptitiously as he answered the children's questions.

Siobhan was turned half away from him, but he saw Joyce break into a smile in answer to something that was said. His sister stepped forward then and initiated a hug that the short haired woman gladly returned.

Later, Siobhan seemed happy as they drove towards her house. It wasn't long before impatience and curiosity got to the inspector. "What was it you said to Joyce?" he asked.

"Hmm?" she replied, seeming distracted.

"You said something that made her hug you."

"Head over heels," Siobhan answered.

"What?" Morse wondered.

"She asked me if I was in love with you, and I told her, 'Head over heels.'"

/ / / /


	7. Chapter 7

/ / / /

"Audit? Oh God, a case audit?" Siobhan asked.

Morse sighed epically into the phone, in confirmation.

"You need the weekend to get ready. And you can't stick Lewis with this," she told him, firmly.

"I know." And the reason he knew was not the unfairness over Lewis losing a weekend. It was that Siobhan would be merciless if Morse ducked out and left Lewis the task to do alone. Her sense of justice was elevated when it came to her fellow detective sergeants.

"But I had wanted to see you," he told her.

"I could still come up. I'd see you at night, right?"

The silence was horrible. Finally, Morse said, "Strange is making me take his place at a civic dinner. Apparently, HE has weekend plans."

"It's settled then," she said with a sigh. "It's alright. I've got this invite here I was hoping to dodge... But..."

"But, what?"

"DC Grimes here at my station just made the list for sergeant. They want me to go out with them. The girls."

"The girls?"

"Yes, the girls," she parroted back. "To celebrate. I'm just the mother hen really at my age. And as I am so ridiculously responsible," she joked. "I'll make sure they all behave at least a little. Someone has to pull the men off them at the end of the night and get them home alright."

"Pull the men off them," he said, his voice rising uncomfortably. "At the pub?"

"No," she admitted. "At the dance club. And it's not the blokes' fault. The girls like the... attention. Up to a point."

The silence then was relentless and accusing.

"Tell me what you are thinking, Morse. I don't know what to say otherwise." She had a sort of pleading tone to her voice now.

"I'm trying hard NOT to think."

"It's harmless, Love. I'm going out to a club with the women from the station. And it is positively harmless," she tried to assure him. "What do you want me to say? That I won't dance with any of the men?"

_Yes_, his brain said automatically.

He had told her he wasn't thinking. But he was. Thinking how she was younger. How she straddled these worlds, the popular one and then his esoteric one, so easily.

"It's fine," he lied. "I'll go help Lewis for an hour or so, and then I'll be off to that function. I'll be back by 11:30 tonight." He was checking up on her, asking her when she would be home for the night with that last statement, she knew.

"Will you be up around one? I should be home by then. I'll call," she told him.

"Wake me."

xxxxxxxxxx

She let herself in with the key he'd given her, and then called out softly as she walked up the stairs so he wouldn't be startled to find someone there.

She smiled from her spot in the upstairs hall; she thought him adorable in moments like these. He had obviously been sleeping, but he was now pulling himself out of bed, his tux shirt and trousers still on. "What are you doing here?" he asked as he ran a hand through his hair.

"Feeling impulsive. I drove straight here from dropping off one of the DCs I was out with."

They met at the door to his bedroom. He hadn't had a chance to take in what she was wearing yet. She was kissing him suddenly. Not a quick kiss in greeting. A kiss that wanted to waste no time.

"You taste like whiskey," she pronounced as she drew back.

"You smell like smoke," he countered. "Why are you here?" he asked, his voice softer now and full of doubt.

"I miss you!" It bothered her that he couldn't understand that she would need to see him.

She was running eager hands over him, and he returned her touches. But he seemed a step behind. He began to notice things, though. The fabric, the feel and fit of her clothing seemed different tonight. "What are you wearing?" he asked.

"Club outfit," she said, innocently. But when he took it in, he realized he had never seen her like this. She was nearly as tall as him in her boots. Her jeans were black and snug. And her shirt was pulled tight across her chest with tiny capped sleeves.

Morse tugged at one sleeve with a slow seductive finger, and the shirt seemed designed to slip off one shoulder. Finally, he blew out a breath he'd forgotten to let go. He seemed pensive then, as he laid a kiss on her exposed neck. Moving as if time was suspended, he let his lips travel her collar bone.

She slung her arms around him then like they were dancing and began to slowly move against him. He thought maybe there was an imaginary dance track playing in her head. And he almost didn't mind.

"Is this what you've been doing all night?" he teased.

"This is what I've wanted to do all night. I had to watch everyone I was out with get up to no good, and you were miles away. It was all I could think about." The statement seemed to end in a moan.

Siobhan kissed him then, slowly and not at all chastely. She surprised him when she nipped at his lower lip briefly. She took one of his hands then and pushed it lower so it rested on her back pocket.

"There," she encouraged.

"_**This**_ is what you have been watching everyone do?"

"Yes," she whined, sounding frustrated. She pressed even closer and slowly raised one knee along his thigh to rest at his hip. Instinctively, he pulled her in tighter with the hand that was resting on her bottom. He gripped her knee with the other hand.

He was pretty sure she growled in response. He kissed her as if to pacify her, and she slid her leg back down to stand in front of him.

"I have to confess," he told her. "I didn't like the idea of you going out to that club last night."

"Because of other men?"

"That, but just that it's something we would never do together."

"You can't expect all our interests to be shared," she told him.

"The point is, I am not fond of you going out to a club..."

"I'm not that fond of it either..."

"But, I do like when you come back," he said with a shy smile.


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N: It has been a pleasure (albeit a lonely one) to get Morse all sorted out. This is the final chapter. **_

**

* * *

**

Months later, Siobhan had completed a study on crime statistics involving women and had been invited to present the data at a few stations, Thames Valley included.

She had looked forward to it. Morse had too, because it would give them two days together midweek.

Perhaps she hadn't let herself acknowledge it, but being back at Thames Valley almost a year later made her realize the distance they had come was small. Smaller than she wished it to be.

Yes, Morse did tell her he loved her. And he did rearrange his schedule whenever he could to be with her. But here they were in a conference room together, hiding the fact that they had just woken up in the same bed. Calling each other by their titles. Not even admitting that they had had dinner together the previous night.

...

Quite a few of the fellows who had worked with her the previous year were still at Morse's station, and they came over to speak with her. It being the end of the work day then, a few of the more forward lads suggested taking her out for a drink.

She had seen Morse as she had packed up her brief case. Caught his eye from across the large room where she'd just finished her presentation. But he kept his distance, and as the sergeants approached her, rather than discouraging their attention, the bastard walked out.

If he had wanted her home with him straight after work, shouldn't he have done something to make that happen, she asked herself.

"All right, Denny," she told Sergeant Moseby with a vague smile. "One drink." She saw Lewis then. "What about you, Robert? Will you have a pint with us?"

"Oh, that's all right for you single folks. But I've promised my wife I'll be there for dinner more often this month!"

Siobhan sighed as she hefted her briefcase and patted Moseby on the back. She didn't think of herself as single. She hadn't, at least, until Morse walked out the door.

... ... ...

Two hours later she was keying into the inspector's house, wondering what sort of night was in store for her.

"You are more a favorite with the sergeants than I remember from a year ago," Morse called out, too accusingly, once she came through his front door.

"Christ, Morse. I'm _nothing_ of the sort! They just wanted to go out for a pint. My being here is their excuse. You've been in a mood all day."

"All I'm saying is..."

"And they would not have asked me out if they had known I was the chief inspector's girl friend. Or am I not the chief inspector's girl firend?" She fixed him with a hard glare then. "One word from you tonight is all it would have taken. 'She's with me,' you could have said. And they all would have cleared off and not ruined your bloody evening!"

"That was three words in hard point of fact," he countered before he could stop himself.

"Oh, brilliant, Morse. You are obviously getting all the right things out of this conversation." She dropped her keys into the basket by the door for punctuation and then found she could not help but pull at her hair.

"You are saying we've been wrong to keep this quiet? Do you think you'd have been invited here by Superintendent Strange if he'd known about us?"

"I'd like to think so." She paused and then decided to ask the real question on her mind. Quietly now, as she walked toward him, she said, "So, is this as good as it gets? We will always be something you want hidden. Just weekend visits? The odd holiday?"

"I haven't said that," he complained strongly with a shake of his head.

"Then what? What are we going to be in 6 more months? Or a year?" She backed away then, afraid of what she had said. She was worried she was forcing this relationship. Being that predictable woman clamoring for commitment. And then more commitment.

He was pinching his brow now. "I am not blessed with any sort of second sight especially where relationships are concerned."

"How about what you WANT to have happen? Can you tell me that?" she asked him sadly.

"I'm even less blessed with the ability to form any list of desires. I have not found my expectations or hopes to ever be founded in any sort of reality when it comes to relationships. So, I suppose, I stopped having them."

"Stopped having which," she said, pointedly. "Relationships. Or hopes?"

"Both," he fired back.

"I don't want to have this conversation suddenly, because I have the horrible premonition these will be the last things we ever say to each other."

"Siobhan," he pleaded.

"I can't stay here tonight. I just need to think. And if look at you, I can't." There was an ache in her voice that tore at him.

"Please, Siobhan," he echoed, sounding lost.

She walked over to the phone and dialed while Morse paced helplessly.

"Robbie," he heard her say. "I've hit a snag with my accommodations. Is there any chance I could stay at your place?" She nodded then as she thanked the sergeant on the other end of the line.

Her bag had never been unpacked. It was all too easy to leave. She paused by the door and pocketed her keys with her head down. "I love you," she told the confused looking man, "I love you so much it hurts. But at least one of us needs to figure out exactly what we want out of life. And I can't do that here."

.. ... ... ... .. .. .. .. ..

Two hours later, a heart sick Morse had had enough of his own company. And although he thought it a bad idea all around, he was soon in his car and headed to Lewis'. He knew there would be some surprise and confusion at his visit. He had been to the house no more than 3 times previously, and it was entirely too late for a social call.

"Dear God," Valerie said, as she saw who was now on her doorstep.

"No," Morse quipped. "It's only me."

"Is it about Sergeant Maitland?" Mrs. Lewis asked in a concerned whisper. "She's in the kitchen with Robbie. But she isn't saying what the problem is."

"Again, I'm afraid that would be me," an unusually cowed seeming chief inspector offered.

Lewis stuck his head out the kitchen door then. "Sir?" The word sounded far more tentative than usual.

"I'm not going to make a scene, Lewis," Morse assured him. "I just need a quick word, and I'll go."

"A word with me, sir?" Lewis wondered, blank faced.

"I'm here to have a quick word with Siobhan, and then I'll leave," Morse explained uncomfortably.

The sergeant's eyebrows went high with the realization. "You're the bloke?"

"She told you the problem was a bloke?"

"It always is when a woman looks like that," Val interjected with an air of tired wisdom. "I'll ask if she wants to see you while I put the kettle on."

Lewis crossed the floor to his boss as his wife left the room. The younger man scratched his head, considering what to do. "I thought maybe you fancied her."

"It's progressed a little further than that," Morse admitted.

"How long have you been seeing each other then?"

"Since fall."

Lewis let out a whistle involuntarily.

"What?" the inspector demanded.

"And she's okay with you keeping it a secret? Just sneaking around."

"I would not describe this as sneaking around. And, obviously, she is not 'okay' with this, or she would not be in your kitchen," the inspector said, sounding irritable.

It was plain from his inability to remain still that the younger man wanted to say something more.

"For heaven's sake! What, Lewis?"

"Fall? So, like 8 months?"

"Closer to ten," Morse admitted. "Not that I had been keeping a close count."

"But she was?" Robbie said, knowingly.

"Yes."

"Ten months, sir?"

"Just say it," Morse grumbled.

"Women like to know if there's any future. You know. ... marriage, family. They sort of look at time differently."

"And how long did it take YOU to figure that out?"

"Oh, I don't know that I figured it out. I had it explained to me, you might say."

At that moment, Valerie exited the kitchen and gave the older man a solemn nod.

Morse jammed his hands into his pockets. He took a deep breath then in obvious anticipation of that first step toward the next room.

"Good luck, sir." The sergeant's words were quiet and earnest. One man to the next. Morse looked at Lewis then and saw him more clearly suddenly. Lewis was a clever, clever sod, really, Morse realized. He'd have his inspector post soon enough. But in the mean time, he had figured out so much more. The man had a place where he belonged each evening. A full and forgiving place. A home.

Morse raised a hand to pat the taller man on the arm. He made his walk for the kitchen then.

"Thanks, Robbie," the inspector managed as he went.

Morse knew, these next moments would not be about what he might convey to Siobhan without words. Tonight, she needed to hear the words. All of them.

...

Siobhan knew Morse would be in. She had told Val it was fine to send him. Still, she found she couldn't quite face him. So she stood at the sink as if looking out the darkened window and kept her back to the door.

"Siobhan?" he called out gently from the threshold.

"Hello, Morse," she replied without even turning around. "I don't want to make this difficult on the Lewises."

"No, neither do I. But I'm here now. A tad impulsively, perhaps. So, just let me tell you that I'm sorry we fought, and that I love you."

She turned finally. And couldn't help but smile at him.

"I love you, too."

"I don't say it often enough," he offered.

"I think I'm more worried that loving me is not enough to make this work."

He walked up close so he could whisper.

"When I met you, I had no idea what I had found."

"What is it you found then?" she asked quietly.

"Everything. Possibly. If I don't muck it up too horribly."

She nodded and swallowed hard.

"What do we do?" he asked.

"You just want things to stay the same? Two places - an hour apart. Weekends together and the odd holiday?"

"I would rather you lived with me, honestly, but how could I ask you to do that? You'd need to transfer someplace closer or..."

She felt herself getting angry. "Because _**you**_ couldn't move? That's just out of the question? The answer to you is that I could just give up what I have and we'd just live together!"

"I'd want you to marry me," he interjected too roughly.

The words knocked her back for a moment. If she had ever expected a proposal from the man, this setting was not fitting her fantasy a bit.

"It's not that simple," she protested finally.

"I know! That's partly why I've never brought it up."

"Do you even want kids?" she blurted out.

" 'Want' would be too strong a word. I don't have that need to reproduce. And I'm fairly certain I would be horrible at it... Raising them, I mean," he tried to correct, "not re..."

Siobhan laughed at the verbal pickle he had gotten himself into. She squeezed his arm and smiled at him.

"Did you really ask me to marry you a bit ago? It's just, before this all goes horribly pear shaped, I'd like to know," she said still smiling.

"I would like to marry you. I do wish it could be that simple."

"And kids. Just yes or no, Morse. Don't prevaricate."

"Yes." He froze then having heard himself answer more easily than should have been possible. "Not in large numbers," he amended. "And with the aforementioned caveat."

"That you would be horrible at it?"

He saw flashes then of Joyce's kids. Of the nieces and nephews Siobhan had. "More inadequate than horrible, I suppose. At least until they can manage a conversation."

"And where is this imaginary family living?"

"Here. Oxford." He said this without pause as if it was eminently obvious.

She rolled her eyes.

"I've got fewer then 10 years till they retire me. It makes sense. Here, until I am off the force. Then wherever you get posted. As long as it's civilized." In the back of his head there was a filmstrip running, it seemed. A future with a family. And somehow, it worked. "Or if not quite civilized, then out near my sister's kids. Or your brothers'. So, the cousins could get together," he finished softly, with a shrug. He was getting a strange vision of domesticity that made sense if only because he saw Siobhan at the center of it. In every frame.

Neither said anything then. It was as if they were letting the unlikely nature of the conversation settle a bit. Could it work? Any future together required a huge compromise for both of them.

She would have to start looking for a new posting in a neighboring department. That would most likely set back her hopes for promotion. But she found as she stood there, that that seemed a small price to pay if she could have him with her every night.

That he would tell her that he would ever leave his beloved Oxford was an incredible concession. That he would share his place with her and a child was near mind boggling. And not just to her, but to him, she knew.

He waited for his rational mind to object to everything he had just told her. But it didn't. He was stubborn, yes. And in this instance that meant he was completely unwilling to lose her. Even the prospect of parenting seemed possible when he looked at her.

"Have you thought about this? Really?" she asked carefully.

"Yes. Before tonight, I worried about it all. I've tried to figure out how we would ever make something long term last. And I've thought of nothing else since you left tonight."

She saw him tense his jaw then as if steeling himself.

She worried there was something more he needed to say. "But?" she prompted him.

He surprised her then by taking her hands in his and saying quite earnestly, "I want to ask you properly, is all. Siobhan? Will you marry me? Please."

"I will," she said happily.

He kissed her, and she ran her hands through his hair as he tried to pull away.

"But," he whispered then, reverting to his old worried self. "Can we please not tell anyone for a week?"

"Why?" she asked with a laugh.

"That way, if you change your mind, everyone won't already know."

She shook her head in disbelief, but saw that he seemed serious. She smiled at him again. "I'm not going to change my mind. But we can ease into this... engagement, if you need. Tomorrow night, if the lads ask me out for a drink..."

"I can tell them you are with me," he finished.

"Say it," she told him as she burrowed into his shirt.

He cleared his throat. "The Detective Sergeant is ..." he teased.

"Oh, do be specific," she complained.

"Sergeant Maitland..."

"Morse!" she growled.

He chuckled. "Siobhan's with me," he whispered at her temple.

"And then you come out with us, and you buy the first round."

"I do?" he protested.

"Yes, it's sort of a friendly token of consolation. See, you get me, and they get the drinks."

"One round. Then home."

"Yes," she assured him with a squeeze. "You. Me. Home."


End file.
